Spirit for Resto

I'm doing some research to help out a Druid healer on my 10 man team and wanted to inquire about spirit. They currently have 7k unbuffed and really have trouble going oom in the middle of a fight. I'm a Paladin healer and have 11k spirit, so immediately I thought spirit was the answer. Changing all gems to spirit would provide a good 2.5k boost in spirit for them. While looking at the armory for a few other Druid healers I know, and researching on EJ/MMOC, I'm seeing Druid healers with "only" 8k spirit and I imagine they're doing fine. I know spirit is relative to the person and you only want enough to get by, but the low number I'm seeing was shocking. For a Druid, do you only need a lower number and maybe our Druid needs to adjust their play style to be more conservative? What am I missing here?

I imagine that you'll get the 'drop innervate early and keep it on cooldown' from most people until he learns to manage better. It's likely similar to priests with Mindbender...which is where I have experience. I don't socket much spirit and I do well, though the cooldown is much shorter.

Really, this expansion is about mana management. If he/she's doing the same thing as in Cataclysm, then all the manas will go out the window.

I imagine that you'll get the 'drop innervate early and keep it on cooldown' from most people until he learns to manage better. It's likely similar to priests with Mindbender...which is where I have experience. I don't socket much spirit and I do well, though the cooldown is much shorter.

Really, this expansion is about mana management. If he/she's doing the same thing as in Cataclysm, then all the manas will go out the window.

Funny you say that. As a Holy Paladin, I have my mana regen trinket/racial on a macro with Holy Shock, so they're always on CD.

Funny you say that. As a Holy Paladin, I have my mana regen trinket/racial on a macro with Holy Shock, so they're always on CD.

So you are either wasting your first trinket/racial mana gain since you'll likely be near full mana when you cast your first holy shock (its often one of the first things you cast :P)...or you are delaying your first holy shock thereby losing out on potential holy power and/or daybreak procs? Blech, no thank you.

As to the OP, yes 7-9k spirit should be enough to handle most fights, using innervate on cd wisely, (at least 1 mana regen trinket), keeping up Lifebloom to make use of OOC procs on RG and avoiding hard casting of HT, Nourish, RG's or wasteful/excessive Rejuvs are all basic steps to have enough mana for the fight and not go oom.

So either ur druids are being wasteful with their mana (poor spell selection) or maybe the raid is taking excessive avoidable damage? Because they have "enough" spirit in general for druid healing (8k ish should be fine)

7k is OK. I like to be a bit higher (normals and LFR), but somewhere in the 7-8k range should be fine for normals. Heroics might want more but most druids still seem fine with 8-9k even there. 11K would be way over what's needed.

My guess is that your druid is running into one or more of these:

1) wasteful spell selection. Look at overheal in WoL.
2) Raid taking too much avoidable damage. They're OOMing because they have to heal unnecessary damage.
3) Other healer(s) not carrying their weight. They're OOMing because the other healer isn't healing (I've seen t his... people so afraid of OOMing that they don't heal. Yay, you have mana... but everyone is dead.)
4) DPS is low, leading to a longer fight than needed. I don't mean 10% to low, but much too low. Fights that should be 8 minutes that are 12 mins, etc.
5) poor use of Innervate, pots, etc. If they don't cast Innervate, guess what...

Honestly, I would try getting more spirit and just giving it a try. I did that once - got to 11.5k spir - and really reaaly like it for some harder fights like galaron, elite mode protectors, tsulong. Nowadays it just doesn't matter much if doing content on farm, but if ur buddy is struggling with mana, why not give it a shot at more spir? Try to find a balance.

And - obviously - check for overheals, innervate use etc (things already said by others in this thread).

Honestly, I would try getting more spirit and just giving it a try. I did that once - got to 11.5k spir - and really reaaly like it for some harder fights like galaron, elite mode protectors, tsulong. Nowadays it just doesn't matter much if doing content on farm, but if ur buddy is struggling with mana, why not give it a shot at more spir? Try to find a balance.

And - obviously - check for overheals, innervate use etc (things already said by others in this thread).

Well it depends. The OP doesn't really give us much information so we don't know if the druid is having issues on all fights including farm bosses or just on progression content. Sure, for elite mode protectors you want more than 7k but it's dependent on what the OP's druid friend is doing. Normal mode MSV? Heroic Terrace?

People use gear as a bandaid too often and the issue with doing it in this case is that moving to a regen heavy build means sacrificing other stats, probably throughput stats. So, yay, the druid doesn't run out of mana, but their heals aren't big enough to keep people up. Finishing with 50% mana and half the raid dead isn't the goal.

The starting point, as always, is to figure out the issue. If they're pushing heroic progression fights, 7k is too low. If they're healing normals it might be marginally too low but they shouldn't need 10k for that. Move spi to 7.5k or so and they should be fine.

My guess is that it's some combination of the list I gave above but really there's not much more that can be said without armory and/or log links. Hell, we don't even know the fights they're on. OOMing on normal Stone Guards is a way different situation than OOMing on elite Protectors.

I heal many hard modes and I run with around 7.8k Spirit. I commonly end up with mana left over at the end of fights. There are fights that absolutely suck for mana, but those are relatively few this tier once you get reasonably geared.

480 Spirit lets you cast roughly two more Rejuvs in a six minute fight. 480 Mastery increases your overall throughput by 1%.

Reforge spirit on every item. Finished. do NOT use spirit flasks. Bigger heals >>> more heals as a druid. Somebody posted some math about this, but I cant find it right now. also always use the int + more crit effect meta. Druids can heal VERY mana efficient with WG+SM+LB+tranq and have two mana cooldowns with innervate and Incarnation. No need at all to go for more spirit. Even if you SHOULD run out of mana because you needlessly spammed too much rejuve, you still can either use a concentration pot, ask for a mana hymn from your shadow or manatide from the shaman. Even Innervate from your feral or boomkin helps.

1. It was already alluded to, but Incarnation (tree of life) is a great mana saving CD. pop tree, start putting 1 Lifebloom on as many targets as possible, and the free (instant) regrowths will come often. This allows very mana efficient healing during heavier damage phases. Even use it during non heavy damage phases if it will be back up the next time you need it. Great mana saver!

2. I dont think the spirit vs throughput argument is as black and white as people are making it out to be. I've read arguments on these forums from top resto druids saying that they often gem pure spirit, because they feel being able to cast one or two extra RG or RJ will have more potential to be lifesaving for the raid than the equivalent throughput gain you would get from not gemming pure spirit. I can't assert one way or the other myself, but the arguments I've read sound very reasonable, and supposedly alot of top druids gem spirit.

The bottom line, as many others have pointed out, is that this is not necessarily a spirit issue. Have them research these forums and the appropriate way to heal. Also compare damage taken data on the bosses and make sure your raiders aren't taking excessive damage. These two things will have a much bigger impact on mana than regen vs throughput for a resto druid. If they are healing properly, using CDs effectively, the group isn't taking excessive damage and the healer is still running out of mana, then they should add more spirit.

I'm running 7.5k spirit and it's really enough. If I was to switch to 10k+, my healing would suffer a lot because the massive amount of mastery is worth a lot more than the few spells this spirit lets you cast more. However, it's important to use two regen trinkets (static int and spirit proc is best).

Your resto is simply doing it wrong, it's not the spirit. He might of course still be doing it wrong stat-wise, if you give us his armory we can tell you. If you have logs, we can tell you what he's doing wrong healing-wise.

To run OOM as resto involves one or more of the following.
Not keeping lifebloom up 100% and thus not getting free regrowths.
Too many rejuev casts.
Too many regrowths that aren't from OOC (ie free).
Poor innervate management.
More spirit means a marginal increase in the number of expensive spells you can cast through a fight. At the cost of throughput throughout the fight. It isn't as black and white as the anti spirit guys would have it as much of that mastery stacking adds to overheal rather than effective healing. Their wider point remains valid though. stacking more and more spirit as a band aid for poor spell selection doesn't cure the poor spell selection. On the pro spirit side is the sometimes things go wrong and you have to spam rejuevs and regrowths to cover for errors in the raid and get back on track.
Basically more spirit gives you a couple of handful of seconds to burn mana before getting back to efficient healing. It would take an AWFUL lot of spirit to allow you to spam rejuev all fight long.
My advice on spirit is this. 1st get spell selection right and then have enough spirit so that you in your raid set up don't go OOM and have a bit to spare at the end that could have gone on correcting mistakes. That spirit level will vary from person to person and raid to raid.
On other stats it is a bit easier. haste should be to a break point and no further. breakpoints that druids aim for vary although 3043 is popular. Some of the SoTF breakpoints are also attractive.
after that most druids prefer mastery over crit although the difference in value between the 2 is not as great as some would have you think.

after that most druids prefer mastery over crit although the difference in value between the 2 is not as great as some would have you think.

It's more because mastery is a flat increase to all healing while crit is a chance to increase your healing, and healers usually don't want to rely on RNG to heal, as in a lot of cases, it leads to someone dying.

Im running 11k spirit right now since we started on the harder heroics, as my partner healer is a little under geared (494) im having to heal a lot more (i have 503 ilvl)... for stuff like grand empress heroic, protectors heroic etc... the extra spirit really helps a lot, after phase1+2 on empress for example, im almost oom.. being able to sit for 30-60secs and regene with high spirit puts me almost full again.

Some fights that dont require as much healing but more thro put ill use my int flask, giving me around 9.6k spirit... fights like imperial ill use a int flask.

I could reforge out of some spirit for more mastery, and use int flask all time, drop to about 8k spirit and be ok... but if there is any "oh shit" moments where i have to spam, ill then be oom... i prefer being able to spam if needed (regrowth or rejuv blankets) then regene after, than being careful with my mana and letting some1 die or something.

imo its better to have 5 rejuvs ticking on 5 ppl at say 20k, rather than 4 ticking at 23k or something just because u cant rly afford the mana cost of more rejuvs.

It's more because mastery is a flat increase to all healing while crit is a chance to increase your healing, and healers usually don't want to rely on RNG to heal, as in a lot of cases, it leads to someone dying.

I disagree with this for druids. Mastery might be better but RNG isn't the reason when it comes to HoTs. IIRC, our base crit is lower this tier and this is why Mastery is preferred. Last tier they were much closer.

To the OP, I healed everything up to Sha with 8k-ish spirit. It's likely a playstyle issue.

I disagree with this for druids. Mastery might be better but RNG isn't the reason when it comes to HoTs. IIRC, our base crit is lower this tier and this is why Mastery is preferred. Last tier they were much closer.

To the OP, I everything up to Sha with 8k-ish spirit. It's likely a playstyle issue.

And this is why as a druid i don't hate crit. My regrowth is 100% crit. almost everything else is a HoT and the RNG balances out very fast. i really don't care if an individual rejuev or wild growth tick is crit or not. crit is not massively behind mastery they work synergistically. i still reforge crit to mastery but i am looking forward to higher crit when i can consider dropping regrowth glyph and consider using HT outside very specific circumstances.
Also Deathruler makes the case for why higher spirit builds aren't as bad as people say better than i could .
Spirit is the stat where you have to choose what works for you. But do this AFTER you have perfected your spell choice not as a SUBSTITUTE for perfecting spell choice. DO let people tell you where you are going wrong with spell choice and improve. DON'T let people tell you that you have the wrong amount of spirit.

I ran MSV normal on 8k spirit and it was fine, of course I suffered a little but it's mainly so the tanks were making mistakes.

I guess the obvious answers would be:

- use innervate early, I use it at 80%.
-don't heal unless they are under 75%, I'm a harsh healer and I don't see the point in topping people up unless you know there is going to be a huge damage coming in.
-with that said, try not to let things get out of hand, this is when we have to spam regrowth and that's mana costly.

I think just don't feel the need to be casting all the time. I am not a spirit stacking player and I didn't reforge or gem anything into spirit. I believe in the more powerful your spells are the less you have to heal so the less mana you have to use.